MutualFundWire.com: Give Gross the Hook? Here's Six Reasons
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Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Give Gross the Hook? Here's Six Reasons


We all have that great-uncle or grandfather who gets drunk at family reunions and raps to Vanilla Ice until someone sits him down. We all have that friend who causes national emergencies during Open Mike Night.

Could it be time to give Pimco founder and chief investment officer Bill Gross the hook?

On the one hand, yes, he is an undeniable investing genius with a perhaps exquisite understand of fixed income investing, economic trends and anything related to Federal Reserve trivia.

Apparently, Gross is still stressing out Pimco senior executives, so much so that some have asked him to shut up in public, reports the Wall Street Journal. So much so, Gross even threatened to quit.

Should he be allowed to do so?

Let's consider a small sampling of evidence:
  • The departure of former CEL Mohamed El-Erian (Yes, old news, but this essentially started all the mishegas and is still pretty important.)
  • Pimco's Total Return fund has seen 14-months of outflows
  • The CEO of parent Allianz had to shut up raging critics for Gross
  • Morningstar's migraines from all this mishegas
  • That Morningstar speech, again talking to execs at the conference, it appears there were mitigating factors for this. We'll give him a pass-- but it still didn't help.
  • Gross's investment column about his dead cat

    To be fair, we should allow these mitigating factors:
  • Kiplinger reports that Gross is indeed converting, somewhat
  • The New York Times Dealbreaker.com reports that is still getting the hang out of not being a prick

    Perhaps, it's just a simple equation: Gross's genius is worth how much mishegas? (I know, this is the third time I used the word.)

    So, would you give Gross the hook?

    UPDATE: Since the breaking of the Wall Street Journal, Pimco issued a statement declaring support for Gross.

    In a statement, a Pimco spokesperson declared ""The July 15th Wall Street Journal article is full of untruths and mischaracterizations that are unworthy of a major news daily. We stand by Bill Gross as PIMCO's founder, Chief Investment Officer and future investment leader."

    Meanwhile, in an interview with CNCB Pimco economist Paul McCulley said that Gross was going through a "tough" time.


    Printed from: MFWire.com/story.asp?s=49151

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